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Final Stages

As I'm on my 2nd day of retainers let me tell you how I feel about them. I HATE THEM. Well not both, just my lower retainer. It's cutting up the sides of my tongue, which in turn is making it difficult to eat. Not to mention that my molars are sore from the retainers! It's weird how it's just my molars though, but whatever.

Other than that I'm used to the feel of them in my mouth, but I'm still slurring some words. *sigh* I can't wait to pick up my lower Hawley retainer next Fri!

So I picked up my Essix retainers yesterday. My upper retainer fits fine, but my lower ones are a whole other issue. Because my lower teeth are so small, and some of my teeth are chipped, the essix can't fully wrap around my teeth tightly so it was slightly loose. It's gotten a lot better since yesterday, but they want to make sure my teeth don't move. So now I have to get a Hawley retainer on my bottom teeth and keep my current Essix on my top teeth. Weird huh?

I got to my appointment and they took me back around 1:05pm. My orthodontist wanted to look at my teeth one last time to make sure they looked okay, which they did, and I was good to go. My assistant was amazing and she was so concerned with making sure I was comfortable and that my teeth look great.

I'm excited (read: extremely, absolutely, 100% freaking ecstatic!) and nervous at the same time. I have heard stories of people with braces having white marks on their teeth after they get their braces off. I think I did a good job of cleaning my teeth while in braces, but a part of me is nervous about the stains!

In 4 (hopefully short) weeks on December 4, 2012 at approximately 2pm I will be BRACE FREE!!!

I went into my adjustment this afternoon pretty confident my teeth were near finished, and when my ortho looked at my teeth he said "I like it!" But he's a perfectionist so he's going to try and close my open bite just a LITTLE BIT more on my right side. Hey, who am I
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Okay so the title of this post might be a little bit dramatic. I'm not in AGONY per se, but my teeth do hurt! Boy are they sore and I knew they would be once the ortho and assistants put my wires back in my mouth. Eating toast? Forgetaboutit!

My ortho wants to move both my lower and upper right teeth upwards by using wires so he made a few tweaks and bends to them. When the assistant tried to close my brackets she couldn't because the wires are SO thick and the bends in the wires
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Wow I have officially been in braces for over 100 weeks! Time just flies and I hope it flies even more quickly!

So today I had my 15th adjustment and we are now in the final tweaking stages. My ortho is now trying to make sure my teeth are evened out. I asked him how much longer I have in my braces and he said, "Well after we get your teeth evened out that should be it." Kind of a general answer and he didn't give me a time frame, but it's definitely going to put me past
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Okay, so remember at my last adjustment my ortho told me "Next adjustment will be your final adjustment then you'll have debanding after that." And remember when I said that I'm trying not to keep my hopes up? Good thing I didn't. Well I kind of did, which is why I'm SO disappointed! Anyways, my ortho's reaction when he saw my teeth was "OH! SOOOO CLOSE!" Frick on a stick!

I had my 13th adjustment this morning. My ortho says that my teeth are looking good and I'm so close to being done. He just wants to work on closing up my bite on my right side. I will still be in my triangle elastic configuration on my left side, but my right side will be a little different. It's kind of like a Class II configuration and triangle configuration combined into one (shown below):

I had my adjustment this morning, and apparently I was supposed to wear my Class II elastics at night for the past 12 weeks! DOH! I seriously don't remember them telling me that... So now I'm back to elastics full time, but my configuration is a little bit different. I'm still in a Class II configuration on my right side (where my open bite is) but now I'm in a triangle configuration on my left side. WHAT? Wait, shouldn't my triangle configuration be on my RIGHT side, where my teeth need to come
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I went to my 11th adjustment today and my ortho was happy about my gaps being closed! Now he is going to work on closing my open bite on the right side. He put a thicker wire on top (yay....) and made some kinks in my upper and lower wire to try and bring my teeth together. My upper teeth should come down a little and my lower teeth need to come up a little. I hope these wires work their magic fast!

Went to my adjustment today (15 minutes late and I literally RAN out my door lol) and my teeth are "almost there" according to my orthodontist. Good news... I guess? Here's what you've been waiting for... pictures!

Double power chain! Yikes!

They added a double power chain to my top 6 teeth. You can kind of see
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